Ximian Adds Subscription

GeneJock writes "Apparently the days of free fast updates from Ximian are gone. The latest update to the Ximian suite replaces the old Red Carpet Manager with a newer version which includes access to a subscription service. This subscription service costs $9.95 a month ($7.95 for the first two months if you signup now). You can still get the updates for free but its slow going... looks like I'll be getting my updates overnight. Read all about it here." Can't fault a company for trying to make some money - hope it works. Update: 12/19 16:48 GMT by T : Please note: Ximian isn't cutting back on the free downloads, either -- in fact, just the opposite. Read below for some more information about this, including a link (yup) to a standalone static binary of Red Carpet, so you don't even need to use Ximian Gnome.

Nat Friedman of Ximian points out that the introduction of the subscription service doesn't mean a reduction in the availability of free downloads, from Ximian and the 40 associated mirror sites. "We've actually grown the pipe by 500% over the past 4 to 6 months," he says. "We also have a mirror coordinator." He cites ever-increasing numbers of Red Carpet sessions as the reason for introducing a subscription; November alone saw three quarters of a million sessions.

That number seems likely to increase, in part because of Ximian partnerships with companies like HP, now shipping a preview release of Ximian Gnome on HP-UX, but also because the Red Carpet software update system no longer requires Ximan Gnome; Friedman passed along this link to distribution-specific static binaries which work with other distributions as well.

Despite new servers and more bandwidth, Friedman asserts that some users downloading software for free will inevitably hit servers at times "when they're getting 8k downloads and they'd rather be getting 50k, and that's really who the subscription is for."

Comments

Double Standard...

[Junta]

I agree, it would be nice to see them make money, and this is really in the spirit of give the product away, charge for services. But the reporting is done with such a double standard.

If MS was to institute this sort of plan, the response would not be "can't fault a company for trying to make money". Granted, they already make enough money as it is, but if you're going to be critical of MS for considering subscription-ware, you ought to be critical of Ximian.

Of course, the updates are still free, but the automatic service costs. Of course, with MS this fact would be completely overlooked and the flaming would commence.

All that said, I think it is very valid to charge for this. For home users, this is only a mild inconvenience, manually updating is both fast enough and mostly trivial. If you are more adventuresome, you can rig an auto-update setup with scripts and cron. Where this really shines is for large deployments (companies) that could afford the subscriptions anyway.

k...d...e....

[ageitgey]

Not to troll, but does anyone actually like gnome over KDE? KDE is years ahead of gnome and advancing at a much faster pace. I know that you can update non-gnome software on redc arpet, but there primary selling point is getting the newest gnome immediately. The problem is, who wants to pay 9.95 to get a desktop interface that really isn't that good?

Re:The "New" Business Model

[TheAwfulTruth]

There is a reason that people are bitching. The "FREE SOFTWARE" mantra is screamed at the top of nearly everyone's lungs here and suddenly any of "FREE SOFTWARE" that becomes useful at all becomes $99 a year to use. So suddenly the "FREE SOFTWARE" mantra looks like a lot of wishful thinking, failed hopes and dreams and maybe even downright FUD.

Now I actually believe that if software IS usefull that people SHOULD pay for it! A company that stays in buisness is more likely to create and maintain quality software than Joe Coder in his dorm room. But you got to understand that Ximian, a poster-child of late of the "FREE SOFTWARE" movement is certainly popping a lot of idealism ballons.

I personally HATE the subscription model though. People complain about MS's "subscrition" plan of upgrading the OS on a bi-annual cycle, but having to pay monthly leads to much higher costs overall. I'd rather pay once for one liscence and use it for as long as it benefits me, then upgrade when I'm ready. I deal with a couple of subscription software companies on Windows (as well as dozens of single purchace liscences) and I can tell you of the two, subscription services are more expensive in the end. Pay as you go, micropayments and subscription software services are WORSE than the old model of buying software liscences.

It's sad that Linux seems to be rocketing this direction rather than just selling the damn software!